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As I mentioned in my post on Wednesday, I offered to make Andrew a quilt from some of his Mother's clothes.
My confession - I've never made a quilt. :(
So, what about you? Do you quilt? If not, why not? If yes, I'd love to hear about your quilting experiences - especially any "first timer" stories. Finally, have you ever made a memorial quilt? I'd really appreciate any advice. Thank you! :)
Photo credit: About.com Quilting
11 comments:
I have made many quilts....but I did make a memorial block for my dad which was put into a memorial quilt about organ donors. Since he donated his corneas, and he was a lifetime choir director, I copied Bible verses and favorite hymn phrases having to do with vision/seeing (e.g., I lift up my eyes unto the hills...O taste and see that the Lord is good..,Be thou my vision, etc) onto special fabric in sheets that you can put in the printer, along with his picture which I printed in the same way. Sme of the border fabric in the block was musical notes fabric. The whole thing came together wonderfully.
I have made a number of quilts. None from clothes yet, but I have made one from Crown Royale bags.
My first quilt was a ginormous 3" square patchwork quilt from my aunt's scraps. None of the squares were exactly the same size, so nothing lined up. I never finished that, but I did make a pillow out of a small section of it for my Dad.
I have not made quilts. My grandmother who passed along the love of sewing to me did quilt. I have a few of her quilts and two quilt tops that I want to finish. Quilting isn't my passion but I appreciate all the work and time that goes into making them.
My DD and I made a very small 9-patch quilt for her teacher one year. That is the entire extent of my quilt-making life!
I actually made three quilts before I considered the fact that I made quilts - to me I was just making patchwork blankets. This means I ignored the conventional quilting seam allowance, I didn't use proper batting and I did fold-over binding (which is one valid method). But all three are going strong. As I've learned more about quilting things have gotten easier. Proper binding isn't that hard, there are loads of batting choices.
I do not quilt. The idea bores me to tears. I am a garment maker and there it ends, but I admire why you are doing it.
I really, really hate quilting! The only exception is baby quilts for very close friends!
I have made four quilts for people suffering unhappy circumstances. The first was for a young girl dying of leukemia--the pattern was 'rail fence', which is easy but very effective. Her mother treasures it to this day. You can separate the fabrics into lights and darks or by color. The second was a quilt for a young woman dying of colon cancer. Her husband was vice-president of the business where I worked. Agreat many of the employees donated fabric, shirts etc and I made a 'strip quilt', sewn on squares of paper using 2" strips of fabric removing the paper after stitching the squares together (everything is on the bias). The unifying feature was the center strip of each square cut from the same piece of fabric. The last shirt was for a co-worker, whose family suffered a tragedy I cannot discuss. She gave me her brother's shirts, and supplemented with some men's shirt fabric. That quilt was simple pieced squares and one square was a quilt label stitched with the names and the group who donated the fabrics. As a victim of a home invasion, I made and donated a 'string quilt' using an unified central fabric and random 2" strings of my fabric to the Victim's Assistance Department here in Nashville. The guilt label on the back was hand-written, thanking the justice system and individuals for their hard work and assistance. The quilt is still being used by victims of rape and abuse as they prepare to testify in court. All quilts were commercially quilted as I don't do that.
I am mainly a garment sewer but I do quilt. First, accept that your first attempt at quilting won't be perfect. Instead of a plain patchwork quilt try a Disappearing 9 Patch. It is easy and interesting to look at. There are lots of good inatructions on how to make it online. They will talk about strips but you can do 5-6" squares also. Sew them into 9 patch squares then cut them. Invest in a 1/4" foot for your machine. Bamboo batting is my favorite. It makes a nice cuddly quilt. I would be happy to mentor you through this. I also recomend interfacing knits to stablize them. Random thoughts. The most important part of quilting is the love you sew into it.
I've made about 2 quilts in my entire life. I made a patchwork one out of recycled jeans squares with no actual quilting or backing, just stitching all of the squares together. And that took me about 10 years to finish, literally, because I got bored with sewing all of those squares and put it away for about 8. I also made the quilt that is currently on my bed, and I'm happy with how it turned out, but I was very happy to get back to clothes! I'll be assisting a bit with another one soonish--my mom is a quilting addict, and so we have a ton of quilts around the house. My boyfriend saw them and was joking about when I'd make him a quilt, so she had the idea of me and her working on it together, with some blocks she already had made up from something else as a starting point. I'm willing to help, of course, but I guess I never really felt a need to take on quilting as a hobby because my mom does it so much, and clothes are more fun for me!
I made my first quilt about a year ago for my grandfather who was dying of cancer and requested a "nap time" quilt. I was able to match the fabrics and get the quilt top pieced fairly easily. However, the hardest part was actually QUILTING the quilt top with the batting and backing. With that said a walking foot is absolutely necessary. I had a friend who quilted and was able to show me how to do the quilting part. Then I just had to bind it and I was done.
I just did a really easy 9 patch quilt block pattern. The one I did was much like this: http://www.quiltingassistant.com/9patch.html I did the "Combine small Nine Patches with big Nine Patches." For the backing I just bought some plain muslin. Then we took some fabric markers and us grandchildren all wrote a message to him on it before I quilted the quilt top and batting to it.
For a while there after I pieced the top, I ran into a road block because of the quilting. Then I called my friend and together we were able to finish it.
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